Leaving Wonderland
by TheChosenFangirl37
Summary: A look back to what happened the night the Evil Queen tried to take over Wonderland. One-Shot.


Kitty smelled the smoke first. She had been stalking a mouse in the fields beyond the chessboard gardens when the acrid smell of burning hit her nose. She stood bolt upright, nose twitching at the smell. She wondered what could be happening. Then she heard the laughter, cruel but beautiful, coming from the castle, and in an instant, she knew what had happened. _She_ had finally made good on her threats. She was here, in Wonderland, at that meant that everything Kitty had ever known was in danger. She willed herself to vanish, and in a second, found herself in the croquet field where she knew her best friend would be.

"What's going on?" Lizzie asked, frightened, as Kitty appeared out of thin air. The sudden appearance of her friend had not been what scared her, she was used to that, rather, she was scared by an unfamiliar sound, one the likes of which has never rung through Wonderland before-pure evil. _A laugh is something that should be happy and free,_ she thought, _what sort of person could make this kind of a terrible laugh?_ But Kitty knew. Such a laugh could only belong to the worst villain ever known by fairytale creature-The Evil Queen. And the Evil Queen's laugh was a gloating one, as if she had just won something.

"We have to go. Now." Kitty grabbed onto Lizzie and prepared to vanish again. "She's here."

Lizzie's face went pale and her eyes widened. "No. She can't be. We were supposed to be safe. Are you sure you're not…" But Kitty shook her head, anticipating Lizzie's question. Lizzie's body shook, as fragile as a leaf in the wind. "What about my-" but the rest of her question blew away in the wind as storm clouds whipped past and began to circle in the sky above the palace. Kitty grabbed onto her friend hard, and together they vanished.

They appeared at the top of a nearby hill, where a whirling vortex floated inside a stone arch. One of the portals to Ever After, which was supposed to have been closed. "We can escape. We can go now and be safe," Kitty said, gesturing to the portal through which Madeline Hatter and her father were already disappearing.

"But what about-" Lizzie started before she was interrupted again. An explosion shook the ground. Above the castle, a terrible figure rose into the air, surrounded by purple lightning and smoke. Her voice rang out, amplified across the whole realm.

"Behold Wonderlandians! Your weak militia dispatched, your palace burnt to a crisp, your rulers captured!" She gestured to two bodies tied at the base of the massive bonfire engulfing the castle. Lizzie gasped in horror. "You thought your puny little protection charm could keep out me? The greatest evil the world has ever known? Once I complete my spell, all of the magic of the place shall be mine, and I will be unstoppable!"

"This is worse than I thought," whispered Kitty. Lizzie found herself unable to speak. Together they watched a blonde boy run frantically past them, away from the portal and toward the storm. Kitty called out to him. 'Alistair!"

'I have to find Bunny!" he yelled back, turning around to face her while continuing to run. "I'm not leaving without her." Kitty nodded solemnly in response. She would have saved all of her friends if she could have, but she had no idea where Bunny would be and there was no time to conduct a search. She had to save Lizzie. That was her only priority.

"Come on, Lizzie, we have to go now!" she said, attempting to pull her friend farther up the hill.

"No! I have to go back for my mother!" Lizzie yelled, wrenching herself out of Kitty's grip. Tears were flooding down her cheeks, and her red face paint and black mascara were melting away and splattering onto her dress.

"Lizzie, no!" Kitty reached out and grabbed at her best friend again. "There's no time!" Lizzie resisted against her, but Kitty's resolve was strong. She had been taught by her mother to keep a calm head in dire situations. _Where is my mother?_, Kitty thought, before shaking the question away, _No not now, now is the time for decisive action, not regret._ Kitty knew what she had to do: she had to save Lizzie. That was the only thought that she allowed to occupy her mind. Lizzie screamed and shouted, but Kitty could not hear her. They trudged up the hill, Lizzie fighting all the way, as rain poured down and smoke swirled around them, and then up into the clouds to feed the storm raging above. A bolt of lightning struck nearby, and Kitty pulled Lizzie closer to the portal. Kitty was crying too now, and her nails were clenched so hard into her free palm that she was begining to bleed.

As they reached the crest of the hill, a scream of pain rang out across the land, a scream that Lizzie recognized as belonging to her own mother. She spun around, preparing to run back down the hill towards the castle, but in an act of desperation, Kitty lept at her, forcing both of the girls through the portal as it began to close behind them.

"MOM!" Lizzie screamed as she felt herself being dragged backward. She reached her hand out and tried to grab onto something, to stay, to see her mother one last time, even if it meant facing death together. Despite the fierce wind ripping around her, she kept her eyes open, watching the storm consume the beautiful landscape that was her home. Looking at the distant speck that was her castle disappear into the tumultuous purple smoke, she tried to remember the croquet matches and birthday picnics, the games of life-sized chess she had played with her friends, those carefree days running up and down the endless meadows, digging for buried treasure with teacups as shovels and throwing tea parties at the tops of trees. But with all those happy memories, all Lizzie could hear was the relentless roar of the storm and the echoes of her mother's final scream. The sound pierced its way through every play date and sleepover, reminding her that she would never again spend a day like those in her beloved homeland. She wanted to shut her eyes and give in to the blackness and despair, but Lizzie kept her eyes on Wonderland until the last, hoping beyond reason that somehow she would wake up still in her bed at the castle, someone shaking her awake from a bad dream. Soon the last flecks of color vanished from her sight, and everything surrounding her became black. For a moment she wondered if this was what death was like and began to surrender herself to the abyss until she felt Kitty's hand grip onto hers, claws digging in, as if holding on for dear life. Every resentful thought Lizzie had had towards Kitty until a moment ago vanished, replaced by a wave of relief that at least someone else, her best friend, was alive, and she clenched her hand in response, to signal that she too was there, alive and breathing.

After what felt like an eternity, the girls emerged from the void shaking and cold, into an unfamiliar place. Everything around them seemed pale and grey, so unlike the vivacious world they had known until a moment ago. Trembling, Lizzie pressed her free hand into the brick wall that they had come through. Solid. It couldn't be. There had to be some way to get back, to return home. To find her mother and her friends, to bring them here safely as well.

As if sensing her thoughts, an unfamiliar man put his hand on her shoulder in what he must have thought was a comforting manner. "I'm sorry my dear," he said gently as if speaking to an upset toddler, "but it's gone. You cannot go back."

Lizzie did not hear him. All of her fear and anger had suddenly returned ten-fold. She threw herself at the wall, sobbing, and began to beat the wall with her hands. She screamed in fury. "LET ME BACK IN! YOU MUST! I HAVE TO SAVE THEM! Have to...save them." She sunk down the wall in defeat, but her hands continued slapping against the hard stone in vain. She felt a faint throbbing in her hands and chose to ignore it. She was sure, so sure, that there had to be a way back through. Her mother, her father, Bunny, Alistair, they couldn't all just be gone. It couldn't be that she would never see them again. In part of her brain, Lizzie understood that beating at the wall was a futile endeavor, but another part of her felt that if she stopped, it would be like giving up on all those she held dear, and abandoning them to their fate.

"Lizzie," Kitty knelt down next to her, tears still streaming down her face, "I'm so sorry." Then she pulled Lizzie away from the wall into a tight hug, and Lizzie collapsed into her best friends embrace, crying until she couldn't feel her face anymore. And Kitty cried too, harder than she ever had before, and she knew that if her body could feel right now, hugging this hard would hurt, and she would have bruises in the morning, but she didn't care. Because all that there was right now was panging grief, and the fear of ever losing her best friend.

Neither of the girls would remember the walk into the village, gripping onto each other like buoys in a sinking sea. They would not remember finding Maddie and her father and the White Queen in the sitting room of a house and having to shake their heads when they were asked about any other survivors. They would not remember throwing themselves into their friend's arms and all silently grieving for the home that they had lost. They would not remember refusing to be separated to go to sleep and their kind host feeling to much pity to deny them the earthly comfort of a loved one's touch, even if it was unconventional.

But what they would remember, even years from now, were the thoughts they had in bed that night, their minds are bodies simply too tired to sleep.

Kitty thought about her mother. _Where was she right now?_ She had no idea. When she had heard the Evil Queen's laughter and smelled the smoke, she had run right for the castle without a second thought for her mother. Kitty had chosen Lizzie, her best friend, over the woman who had given birth to her. What kind of daughter did that make her? _But_, Kitty thought, _Lizzie is so much more than my best friend. I can't even describe with words how much I love her. I care about her more than anything in the world._ Yes, Kitty had chosen Lizzie, but she did not regret it. Given the chance, she would go back and make that choice a thousand more times. Kitty would always choose Lizzie, no matter what the other option was. In a thousand lifetimes, in a thousand different worlds, she would choose Lizzie.

And Lizzie, who had been pretending to sleep just beside her, rolled over and wrapped Kitty in a tight hug. She was also thinking, thinking so many thoughts at once that simply it felt like thinking nothing. Kitty put her arms around her and held her, an embrace full of unsaid grievances and cares. Lizzie also thought about her mother, who had raised her, about Bunny and Alistair who had gone on countless adventures with her, the March Hare, who had let them have tea parties at his house no matter how messy they were, the royal guardsmen who had let her borrow their shields to trace the rose insignias. But above all else, she thought of Kitty. When Lizzie pictured love in her mind that night, she did not see a picture of her mother, stoic and distant from her throne. She saw her best friend standing at the top of a hill, reaching out her hand to invite Lizzie to roll down with her. She saw her best friend practicing dance steps with her, no matter how many times Lizzie stepped on her toes because she understood how important the royal ball felt. She saw her best friend staying up with her for hours talking about nothing because she couldn't go back to sleep after having a bad dream. She saw her best friend making her heart-shaped pancakes after a long, hard day. She saw her best friend who had also had to abandon her home and her loved ones, just to save her. She saw her best friend, loving and supporting her through everything, and doing whatever it took to get the two of them through that day and into the next. And in that moment, Lizzie knew, deep inside her, that in a thousand lifetimes, in a thousand different worlds, she would choose Kitty too.


End file.
